The bevy of young nominees set to perform on Sunday’s national telecast, which airs here at 8 p.m. on a three-hour time delay on KFMB/Channel 8, includes Justin Bieber, 16; Rihanna, 22; Lady Gaga, 24; Bruno Mars, 25; and nearly the entire cast of TV’s “Glee.” They join a lineup that ranges from actors Jaden Smith, 11; and Miley Cyrus, 18; to 38-year-old hip-hop king Eminem (who has a field-leading 10 nominations this year), and — marking the first time any member of the Rolling Stones has performed on the Grammys — Sir Mick Jagger, 67. (Also on hand, as an awards presenter at the Staples Center in Los Angeles, will be Jewel. She is one of nearly a dozen past and present San Diegans who are nominated, a group that ranges from Lambert and Julieta Venegas to the band Switchfoot and recently deceased jazz great James Moody.

“I think it’s fair to say we’re accurately reflecting the current ‘youth revolution’ in pop,” said Neil Portonow, the president and CEO of the Recording Academy, under whose auspices the Grammys are presented.

“When you talk about today’s landscape of available media, the pace of everyday life and the technology involved, I think one would make a mistake to take anything for granted. So we’re always very aggressively looking to keep raising the bar and to bring as many folks to the table to see what we do, because we believe they’ll enjoy it and respond.”

This growing focus on youth has provided a dramatic boost to viewership over the past two years for the music world’s most prestigious and eclectic annual awards fete, which saw ratings plunge between 2005 and 2008.

Here’s a rundown on the 2010 Grammys telecast, which featured performances by, among others, Gaga, Beyoncé and vocally pitch-challenged Album of the Year winner Taylor Swift:

• It aired in 175 countries, drew a TV audience of 25.8 million in the U.S. (more than 400,000 of them in San Diego).

• The nearly 26 million viewers marked a 35 percent increase over 2009 (which in turn drew 10 percent more viewers than in 2008).

• More significantly, last year’s show saw a 36 percent increase in adults 25 to 54, and a 32 percent increase in adults 18 to 34 and 18 to 49.

That’s music — and money — to the ears of CBS and to the nonprofit Recording Academy, which is one of the nation’s leading organizations for music advocacy, education and artists support efforts. But this marked increase in popularity for the Grammys, which for many years were dismissed as too conservative and out of touch with the times, is no fluke.

This is the third consecutive year that the Recording Academy has embraced all manner of social media — including Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, an interactive microsite (musicislifeismusic.com) and a MusicMapper app. From 2 p.m. today until Sunday afternoon, the Grammy website and YouTube will provide live video, photos, blogs and tweets of pre-Grammy VIP events.

“There has been a concerted effort to reach out to the independent younger constituency,” said Crawford High School graduate Gail Mitchell, the Los Angeles-based R&B and hip-hop editor for Billboard, the industry’s top weekly trade publication.

“The nominations really home in on what’s going in on music. With last year’s Grammy performances by Pink and Lady Gaga in particular, they started really tapping into what younger viewers are into, and this year’s slate continues that same theme. So does the Grammys’ multimedia marketing campaign, ‘Music is Life/Life is Music,’ with Cee-Lo Green, Eminem, Katy Perry, Justin Bieber and Arcade Fire. The last couple of years, my son and daughter — who are 15 and 17 — have watched and enjoyed the Grammys. A lot of my friends watch it, too.”

Some baby boomers might tune in just to see what eye-popping outfit Lady Gaga is, or isn’t, wearing (the website features a “Grammys Fashion Forecast Page”). But the Grammys are not about to abandon a generation who grew up with the show, which explains the announcements that Bob Dylan and Barbra Streisand have been added, along with a tribute to Aretha Franklin that will feature Christina Aguilera, Jennifer Hudson, Yolanda Adams and Martin McBride.

Based on the most recent Grammy telecasts, the fact that many young acts are featured is no guarantee of high musical quality. Indeed, last year's telecast featured an alarming number of younger performers using AutoTune to disguise their vocal limitations.

But by pairing young and veteran artists to perform together — in what recording Academy honcho Portnow likes to call "unique Grammy moments" — the show hopes to serves as a bridge between different musical styles and generations.

"Beyond entertainment, we have a platform — and the gravitas of the Grammys — to be educational," Portnow said.

"So when audiences come to us, I think people look forward to hearing and seeing things that maybe they're not familiar with and they get exposed to different genres and generations of performers. And what we try to do is to connect the dots, the eyes and ears of a broad audience, whether it's boomers and up, or young teens and below."

Ironically, some of the most memorable Grammy-related events each year are not televised.

Tonight, Barbra Streisand will sing at the culmination of the black-tie MusiCares charity fund-raising dinner concert being held in her honor. Other artists scheduled to performs before Babs takes the stage include Stevie Wonder, Diana Krall, Tony Bennett, Jeff Beck, Herbie Hancock and several members of TV's "Glee," including Lea Michele. (Click here to see video clips from last year's MusiCares fete, which honored Neil Diamond.)

Saturday afternoon, the San Diego-bred Kingston Trio will receive a Lifetime Achievement Grammy at the Special Merit Ceremony. Other honorees include Julie Andrews, the Julliard String Quartet, Dolly Parton, jazz drum pioneer Roy Haynes and The Ramones. This will be followed by the nominees party, which the members of San Diego's Switchfoot plan to attend.

Sadly, the public rarely gets more than a glimpse of these invitation-only events (although we'll be filing reports right here on several of them). But allure of the Grammys offers a rare and welcome spotlight to an ailing record industry that has been in a dizzying free fall for more than five years.

This holds especially true with album sales plunging and digital music sales recouping only a fraction of the lost profits, especially in an age when many young and not-so-young people download songs (and entire albums) without paying for them. The glitz and glitter that once dominated the industry may be diminished, but — thanks to the Grammys — for at least one starry, starry night each year, that luster is restored.

"In the past 10 years, the number of people working in the mainstream of the record industry has been reduced by almost half. So that is very painful and troubling," Portnow said.

"We are fortunate because we represent a different part and side of music, from an institutional standpoint, and are not solely reliant upon sales. And because our brand is so incredibly well-known and established, we have the benefit of being able to carry on the work we do, without necessarily having had the drastic impact that some on the commercial side of the industry have faced. That being said, we're as prudent as ever. We've certainly economized and reduced costs and overhead wherever we can."

For established and veteran artists alike, the Grammys represent a pinnacle of accomplishment. This holds especially true since votes can only be cast by music industry professionals who are members of the Recording Academy, which has 20,000 members, nearly 14,000 of whom are eligible to vote.

“If you’re nominated for a Grammy, most people look at you on a whole new level,” said singer (and current nominee) Julieta Venegas, a Long Beach native who grew up in San Diego and Tijuana and has won one Grammy and five Latin Grammys.

“The first time I got nominated was a really big deal, and it’s still exciting to be nominated and be there, even if you don’t win.”

For San Diego band Switchfoot, those nominations have come a decade apart. The group was first nominated in 2001 and did not make the final Grammy ballot again until this year. Ironically, while all five of its members belong to the Recording Academy, none of them voted this year.

“If we win, it will be as a result of everyone else’s votes, not our own!” said Switchfoot leader Jon Foreman.

“Many times, awards can help you be taken more seriously by people who may not know who Switchfoot is but do know what the Grammys are. So, in that way, it can be great. But it doesn’t change any of the notes I play or sing. If anything, it just makes me thankful to still be playing music and to think about all we’ve done since the last time we went to the Grammys.”